Film / News
South West Silents announces ‘Mega Silents’ season
To celebrate a glorious decade of screening the best vintage silent films in the UK, Bristol-based South West Silents is staging a season of double-bills at the Bristol Megascreen (formerly the IMAX cinema in the aquarium). The idea is to pair silent classics with well-regarded more recent films. First up is F.W. Murnau’s 1922 masterpeice Nosferatu, teamed with Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987) on Saturday 18 January. Go here for tickets.
“It probably doesn’t come much of a shock as to why we start with Nosferatu, given the release of Robert Eggers’ own take of the tale now in cinemas,” says South West Silents co-director James Harrison. “But this will give audiences a chance to see the first adaptation of Dracula (and probably the best) with live music by the great silent film musician Stephen Horne. Plus we have the best restoration being screened thanks to our friends at the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation in Wiesbaden, Germany.”
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Next up for South West Silents in March is a trio of double-bills organised in partnership with the Future City Film Festival, each showcasing the use of montage and cutting in early silent cinema and its impact on modern filmmakers. On Saturday 1 March, the ground-breaking Soviet classic Man With a Movie Camera (1929) is teamed with Buster Keaton’s brilliantly inventive The Cameraman (1928). Saturday 15 March brings Berlin: Symphony of a City (1927) alongside Bob Fosse’s Cabaret (1972). And finally on Saturday 29 March, a 100th anniversary screening of Eisenstein’s brilliant Battleship Potemkin (1925) is paired with Gillo Pontecorvo’s hugely influential The Battle of Algiers (1966). Tickets for these events are £12 each, though you can also buy a season pass for £30. Go here for details.
Main image: Nosferatu (1922). All pix supplied by South West Silents
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